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AN ADDRESS 



BEFCEE THE 



clu fork M\it Ceat|crs' ^ssocialiflit, 



UTICA, THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1855, 



BY DAVID B. SCOTT, A. M. 



ALBANY: 

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION. 

TRtJXlAX U. BOWEX, PUBLISHIXG AGENT. 

1855. 



ijtu ilo He Stonli: 



AN ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



^tlu §m\i ^hk Cfiirljcrs* |iSS0naliflii, 



UTICA, THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1855, 



BY DAYID B. SCOTT, A. M. 



ALBANY: 
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION. 

TBUMAN H. BOWEN, PUBLISHING AGENT. 

1855. 






Tn G::ichang-o 
Peabody Institute 
Baltimore 
AUG 2 - 1928 



A D 1 ) 11 ESS. 



He that for the occasion is elevated above his peers, to instruct or 
inspirit, assumes a responsibility of the very gravest character. For 
this reason, it appears to me no light or easy business to satisfy the 
requirements of an occasion like the present. For the subject of 
teaching and teachers has been handled before your body by so many 
masters ; the poor pedagogue has been looked at from so many various 
stand points, now perhaps as an artist, and again as a worker: he 
has been praised and patted; he has been elevated, and elevated and 
elevated, and it has become so great a hobby of the best of men with 
the very best intentions, to shout paeans to the common school sj'stem, 
that I had almost despaired before I had well accepted of the invita- 
tion to address you. And yet, I took courage and comfort from the 
fact, that the very best offering I could bring would be the fruits of 
earnestness. Fresh from the very buzz and dust of the school room, 
surely, there must be some things to be said by one of yourselves, 
that must spring from the life, and have a certain energy because 
they are living experiences. I address myself therefore to the young 
men and women of our profession; to those who have begun with 
hope and energy; many of whom are before me — and it is their atten- 
tion that I especially request to the few thoughts that are to follow. 

My theme is " Where do we stand." in the social scale as common 
school teachers, and in addition I shall take the liberty to suggest 
some remedies by way of improvement. 

We endeavor to believe that community is honest when it tells us 
that our calling is one of the very noblest in which men can be en- 
gaged. At least we have been told it so often, that there seems no 
danger of our forgetting it. Community has not quite told us that 
we are therefore the noblest men. But we accept the recognition of 
the nobleness of our calling as something that community means to 
stand by. It is something for public opinion to have made this progress. 
Something, for it to feel that the instruction of its children is nobler 
than the care of its live stock, and something more for it to have ex- 
pressed this frequently and apparently with sympathy. Justice, saith 
the proverb, hath a leaden foot, but an iron hand. So is it with 
enlightened public opinion, under a free constitution, it swings often 
slowly round, but it does swing at last to its place. It has made with 
us a part of its curve of oscillation. 

Were our only controversy now with community, the belly to be 
fed and the back to be clothed, a simple war cry could easily be 
B 



raised — '* More money! more money!" Th;it might perhaps, prove 
successful enough. But a man must be respected in his labor, must 
have regards promptly and cheerfully paid him, must have depth and 
geniality of soil about him, to let him expand as far as the limits of 
his internal growth. Without this, life has neither individuality, nor 
happiness. We may have family, wife, children, perhaps a limited 
circle of friends, but the vigorous flush of life is not there. 

What to me are a great man's opinions of the nobleness of my call- 
ing, even if it give me a fair living, if he knows me only in my school 
room, and ignores me when I meet him with his great friend, 
the next day, on the public walk? A great discrepancy like this 
stuns me like a blow, it makes everything for the time a muddle; 
on some natures, it hangs like a millstone, in others, it pro- 
vokes the intensest bitterness. Either the great man was profuse of 
his patronage, facile in his expressions, or simply played the hypocrite 
for a purpose. Perhaps he had achieved that most difficult and casu- 
istical of mental operations. " Honoring the chair, and despising him 
who filled it." Such treatment must, on every youth, prove nothing 
but disastrous. The mind does not readilj^ reach a point of rest after 
such a vibration. 

That great, genial and loving soul. Sir Walter Scott, has himself 
reported by Lockhart as saying, that he never knew a school master 
that wasn't an idiot ; that is, I suppose he had never found one whose 
pedantry did not make him an ungenial companion. But Scott was a 
slave to aristocratic forms, with all his kindliness of heart. The 
position of the teacher was an anomalous one in Sir Walter's eyes, 
not assured, but pendulous, like another Mahomet's coffin, between 
the professions above and the artizans below. Puzzled to class him, 
Waverly put him among the idiots. Of a piece with this, old Boswell 
of Auchincleck could express no more bitter contempt for the sinking 
character of his son, than that " Bozzy had gone off with a man that 
kept a schule, and ca'd it an academy.'' The school master was no 
less a character than the illustrious Samuel Johnson. 

Here in America, we think we have outgrown all this. Society 
with us, we say, does not rest on imposing props or shams, but on the 
worth of men. Each stratum does not lie heavy and unmoved on its 
lower neighbor, crowded in its turn by its neighbor above. But faults, 
breaks and upheavals throughout the entire line, attest great forces 
from beneath constantly working upwards to the surface. This we 
reckon well to be the glory of our society. 

By what has it come about, then, that the teacher — I mean always 
the common school teacher — has neither status nor influence corre- 
sponding to the nobility of his calling; that for the most part, he is 
reckoned simply a school keeper, and nothing else; that the lowest 
seats at feast and synagogue are left for him, if he be left any; that 
he musf; sit so often wisely dumb, and prove a willing listener to 
others' wisdom; that church and state must be pillared and governed 
but not by him; that, in short, he must be committed to the eternal 
silences, to comfort himself as he may. 

The finest school houses rise on all hands, better than many of the 
ancient temples to the gods. They are so numerous, too, that in 
act the}' make a style of architecture, distinct and readily imderstood. 



Even the very furniture has become a separate branch of manufacture, 
lucrative and extensive. A stranger is shown with pride, amid the 
notable things, the school houses. How often is he shown the school 
master or the school mistress? One would like to see amid a fair 
garden the gardener himself. The roses are sweet, the exotics are 
rare, the grounds are in excellent taste, but where is the mind that 
arranged them thus, is there no honor due him; some visible token of 
respect; shall we go cap in hand to the gar(len or the gardener? 

Or, is it in an assembly of that best society, where wit, good breed- 
ing and culture reign, you will find the teacher of the village or the 
city common school. Ask yourselves this question and answer it too. 
When Dr. Hamel comes on a scientific tour from St. Petersburgh, I 
should much like to see him in private, to hear him, to learn of him, 
mayhap, if he were willing to communicate; or sit with Emerson, 
when he is genial beside his friend's chimney corner; or mingle with 
wisdom, wit or genius, as it curves and sways in social life. But how 
many of such opportunities do the most favored of us get; and when 
some of us do get them, so seldom have they come, that we are often 
too awkward, or oppressed or uneasy to profit by them. In social life 
a man or woman must be easy, to prove a cheerful absorbent. 

As to public life, I only make a passing allusion, for I find but few 
of my mates that have risen to any celebrity therein. One or two, 
I know, have fledged at once into aldermen; but an alderman in my 
own city, is rather an ascent downwards. Another — a man of spirit 
and geniu^, by the way — had the terrible audacity to placard the fences 
in his recent canvass for register, with great letters, "Vote for John 
Roe the school master;" thus throwing his calling in the very teeth 
of the public, and in spite of this, as I verily believe, was successful. 
There are no doubt a few other instances, but these partial exceptions 
only prove a strong rule the other way. 

Thus it has come about that in this year of our Lord, 1855, we 
have reached a point in our common school system, where the public 
praise much, where the orators have many ready rounded periods, and 
where are vastly better school houses than formerly', but where I do 
not find the social position of the teacher correspondingly improved. 

It is easy to find fault with this state of things and so organize a 
great arniy of grumblers; to supply officers and orators for such an ' 
army enough; to growl out in the plainest English. •' Less talk — less 
talk, and better treatment." But will this remedy the matter tho- 
roughly ? 

By way of a remedy many words have been spent on the recogni- 
tion of teaching as a profession. As though there had been some de- 
frauding of us by the public out of the worth of a name, or a calling 
us out of our true name. According to this, it would appear that the 
true social remedy, is to get this name of a profession, because we 
see that professional men have a certain status, which we have not, 
and which we very much long to get. It is the Tyrian purple, the 
robe of ermine, the fasces, the very thunderbolts of Jove, the encom- 
passing around of a great robe of influence, this name of a profession. 
Thus honestly say some, and no doubt believe what they say. 

A good name is a good thing; a noble name is also a good thing; 
but what makes the name noble or good? The worth or worthiness 
B 



6 

of the wearer. If my license to be a teacher shall introduce me to a 
circle of noble men or women, as a cross of the legion of honor at 
once inducts the wearer into the order of all brave spirits, then it is 
something to have the license of a teacher. But does any prolession 
really do this? Does the ministry which fences itself round with the 
highest barriers, which guards itself by a jealous, and exclusive watch- 
fulness? Any such arrangemen', though it may guard against looseness 
of doctrine or irregularity of life does not of itself give professional 
status. 

" The rank is but tlie guinea's stamp; 

A man's a man for a' that." 

A man must show himself a man in this, as elsewhere. The day 
of drones is passing away in this as everywhere. Do you doubt it? 
Look round on the ministry, and count those who have character and 
influence, who have not in some way or other deserved it. Justice is 
not blind, although the old mythology wrapped a bandage about her 
eyes. This is to be reckoned one of our American blessings; by no 
means the smallest. For, why should my bretl.ren of the law. or 
divinity or medicine, be professional and respected, because it is law, 
or divinity or medicine they profess? And, it will be found, I fancy, 
if we examine deeper, that it is not law and divinity as things that 
do ennoble the men in them. But it is the noble living of those who 
have been in them, that has come down on the present, and each 
generation enters, in a measure, into the reputation of the past. 
There are others who contend that as the teacher has been paid 
shamefully low, and yet is so paid in many places; that the value of 
a man's services is not to be underrated without lowering the man, 
and that salary is often the foundation of social considt ration. "With 
them the true way to give social position, is to pay the teachers better. 
Perhaps this might in some cases have the desired effect, but there is 
a very simple way to dispose of this position, and that is by the ques- 
tion, " Why are better salaries paid than formerly ?" Simply, because 
the services of teachers are worth more because they are better. If 
this be likely to improve our social grade, the matter would seem to 
lie greatly within our own reach. 

At this point, bear with me when I say that perhaps in this matter 
society is not wholly to blame, and that we are ourselves to blame 
not a little. And this brings me to speak of the remedies within cur 
power. 

Highest, I place a consciousness of the worth of our calling; no 
human being ever yet worked well in what he felt to be a worthless 
work. It makes little difference what others may think of its value, 
what the Honorable Governor This, or the Revereiul Doctor That, 
may say. Your own thought influences you, because your own thought 
stays by you: their sayings are to you at second hand. If nothing 
but the face of drudgery, sad, weary drudgery, looks up at you, out; 
of your calling, rid yourself by looking at it earnestly, and settle it 
decidedly, whether this face can not be turned into the noble face of 
most pleasant duty. If there be any love in the business, a good heart 
and hope, teaching will stand such an examination. If we will look with 
a right spirit how much shall we see ! These are noble lines in that 
fine old poet, Herbert: 



" A man that looks on glass 

On it may stay his eye, 
Or, if it pleaseth, through it pass, 

And then the heaven espy. 

All may of thee partake, 

Nothing can be so mean, 
Which, with this tincture, for thy sake, 

Will not grow bright and clean. 

A servant, with this clause, 

Makes drudgery divine : 
Who sweeps a room, as by thy laws, 

Makes that and the action line. 

This is the famous stone 

That turneth all to gold 
And that which God doth touch and own 

Can not for less be told." 

And so, I think, all work becomes ennobled by the spirit of the worker. 
The spirit can indeed turn everything to gold. Think from this, if 
we would have others respect us socially, how necessary it is that we 
be self-respectful. And how can we respect ourselves if we respect 
not our work? 

Again, our work may be degraded in our eyes by the mechanical 
way in which we proceed, I use mechanical in the blind, thoughtless 
machine sense. There are mechanics at teaching, just as there are 
mechanics at law, at divinity and at medicine. Let us master the 
principles. Principles lift a man out of the machine life and give him 
power, momentum, originality and variety. Principles enable us to 
combine, to test the old, to try all the spirits, and keep us from being 
mere imitators to the fiftieth generation. For what ought it to be to 
you how Julius teaches at a given time, and under certain circum- 
stances, for you shall not hear a rich minded, many sided teacher, 
teach in the same way, the very next time you hear him. Neither be 
overshadowed by any great name, or smothered by any cloak of influ- 
ence, no matter who may be the wearer. However rude your plans, 
let them be founded on the principles of your craft, let them grow out 
of the occasion, the character of your pupils, your own thoughts. 
Seek variety as opposed to monotony. This latter is the great slug- 
worm of our profession. How long the hours! how wearisome 
the days! if we must plod on in the same beaten paths. Seek variety 
in method. Take suggestions from every quarter, but think out your 
own plans. The dullness is not always in the scholar. Teach under 
the pressure of a heavy affliction, under fatigue, under bodily derange- 
ment, and see how great an effort is necessary by change to keep up 
the life of the school room. Even the black heavens, and the leaden 
sky are often our enemies, which may indeed be overcome by throw- 
ing variety and new life into our exercises. 

I reach now another point of the greatest importance to our self- 
respect; the necessity of Truth in our work. There is a dishonest 
way of working in teaching as in everything else. What, for the most 
part, are those public examinations, where things seem to glide along 
so smoothly before flattering mothers, and approving friends. Try 
these Dead Sea apples, and taste the ashes. What is that waste of 
time on special training before, the neglect of the rest, the unhealthy 



8 

excitement, the bad stimulus of unearned praise, the lassitude that 
follows. I do not now allude to the influence on the pupils, the fear- 
ful lessons, they then learn and never forget. There is no blindness 
so great on our part, as that which maizes us confound the applause 
we work for in this way, as a success. Is a hot house growth a 
healthy or a natural growth? Into what untold difficulties should 
we come, if our markets depended on such a supply. The course of 
nature takes its steady course, and may be forced ouly to the injury 
of the plant. The whole brood of public examinations are to be 
dreaded as the greatest temptation to falsLhood aud chicanery. For 
who are the most skillful in these displays, and by what means do they 
reacli the summit. Are they the patient, the strictly honest, the hard 
working among us ? My observation does not bear me out affirmatively. 
If we are compelled to present a class which in twenty minutes shall 
show an entire familiarity with geography or astronomy or history or 
arithmetic or algebra, as shall determine our character as teachers, 
and the reputation of the school for a whole year following, then, it 
requires an amount of self-denial, to which many of us are strangers, 
to prevent our placing the picked ones of the class before the public. 
And practically what is the case ? The best pupils are selec'ed, Hrilled, 
tasked, forced and crammed, and the examination is achieved to the 
great wonder of the iininitiated. There is no sadder mistake. I am well 
convinced, than to suppose that those whose opinion is wonh having 
care for such displays, or are in any favorable way affected by them. 
I mean the enlightened portion of the community. It is a mistake 
quite as grievous, to suppose that any applause elevates us or our 
profession, which, tried by the severe yet eternal principles of truth, 
lower us in our own estimation. These are noble words of John 
Ruskin, "There are some words slight in the sight of self-love, some 
errors slight in the estimate of wisdom, but truth forgives no insult 
and endures no stain." Granted you are or might be an adept at such 
displays, would you be the Barimm or the Page of your profession? 
I assert, then, without hesitation, that to be true men and women in 
this our business, we must decide to settle the question of our public 
examinations, by the great principles of truth. That is dearer than 
the popular and momentary applause. 

One of the shoals against which we strike, and to the consideration 
of which we are naturally led by what has just been said, lies in our 
ambition to be hastily great. In the cities, the waves of excitement 
are the strongest; even in the country you feel their strength. The 
press of battle and of knights is all about us, each seeking in that 
intense development of the indiviiual to have the foremost place. 
Partaking of the pensive nature of the student the teacher sees the 
brilliant prizes lie out of his path, and occasionally when he has 
caught the fever about him, he joins in the melee.- I think I can per- 
ceive, in this restlessness, in these thorns of rivalry, in the compari- 
son of worldly progress, we are so constantly making, the cause of 
much dissatisfaction with our business. And yet, every one of us 
ought to be great in whatever he is called to do. " Greatness is not 
entailed in some places or duties, or in certain offices or occasions. 
If the labor even be trivial, let us by our thinking and character make 
it liberal. There seems nothing peculiarly great in the business of 



9 

fiddling. A fiddler is rather a common product, and yet 'Paganini 
had both character and fortune trom a string of catgut." My own 
measure of the ability of any man or woman, is very simple, it is the 
ease with which he tills every requirement ot any position into which 
he may be called. Thus, his work of to-day is well done, completely 
done. If circumstances call him higher, he will as readily, as easily 
fill that sphere to-morrow. In this sense, every man shows his true 
greatness as he progresses. The pressure of the times, the love of 
notoriety, drives us into many fooleries, neither to be countenanced 
nor defended. So that, at length, a notice in the papers, an elaborate 
puff, become as sweet to us as in the old heroic times were the nectar 
and ambrosia of the gods. 

It is to be borne in mind, however, that, the very nature of our 
work seems often to drive us in this direction. For we can never see 
its complete effects. The painter on his canvas, the sculptor on his 
marble, the architect on his materials, if they live long enough, may 
see their works completed, and the beauty they have created becomes 
•' a thing of joy forever." On the teacher's work here the dome never 
rises to completeness. It is yonder, in the heavens. The great 
eternal future covers it, and the only collyrium that can clear the 
eye for such a vision, is honest work and a noble faith. How petty 
in comparisi-n seem all other rewards! When we consider on how 
slight a fouudation the thing we call popular applause rests; how often it 
is the result of mere caprice, of ill nature, of class or caste or habit or 
disease or misfortune; how variable in its moods; how unjust, often, 
in the fame it gives; it requires little to bring us to allow that nobler 
incentives lie in our work and in ourselves. I have touched thus on 
what might be called the ethics of our profession, and their absolute 
necessity to self respect in our work. 1 proceed to the necessity of a 
proper preparation, to the necessity of culture. It seems almost un- 
necessary to make a plea for a thorough acquaintance with the branches 
usually taught in our common schools. I have known some to make 
a boast that in their younger days, when they began to teach, they 
had studied day by day in advance of their pupils in the common 
schools, and so. had managed to keep up a respectable appearance of 
knowledge. Perhaps this may do as an exception, but is Lttle to be 
followed as a rule. It especially appears to be a thing not to be 
published, but rather, in a modest man, to be hidden. For ignorance, 
cover it with what garb we may, either of pretence or tact, is certainly 
not very conducive to self-respect. Surely, in this great state of New 
York, with her excellent, because well-conducted academies, with the 
normal school, that nursery of teachers, with the higher departments 
even of the union and grammar schools, a proper education in all the 
common branches can not well be missed. If missed I do not hesitate 
to sa.y that it is no time to begin that preparation after one has taken 
a school. I touch on this point the less fearlessly because years ago 
in a neighborii g state, it was the fashion to begin school teaching in 
this very naked way. But put this plainly to each of you. How 
could a social position be given to men who were in education not a 
whit better thau the pupils they sought to teach, and who had only 
one element of power, the fear of disgrace, if they could not maintain 
their discipline? It will be said that public opinion has come round 



10 

by making higher demands. As if public opinion could make true 
men or women, or rather as if public opinion was not a thing of growth 
through external influences. For it is a law of supply and demand 
that the wants of every community are made by presenting what is 
likely to increase its pleasure or its power. 

Tlie miners of Cornwall did not incite Watts to invent his steam 
engine, but that Archimedes of steam power created the force, and 
made it a necessity, not only for the miners, but for you and for every 
onj. The Croton, in my own city, was an anticipation in minds of 
genius and public spirit of a public need not at all realized by com- 
munity itself; and yet, when fairly presented, by what an overwhelm- 
ing vote it was decreed. I might multiply instances, but these will 
suffice. So also, one well kept school by a good and efficient teacher 
not only makes (thereafter) good schools in that district a necessity, 
but raises the tone of demand throughout the neighborhood. For 
community in this thing as in other things, when it is made to under- 
stand its wants, in general takes tolerably active measures to satisfy 
them. Thus then a single true soul, well fitted for his duty, and ex- 
cellent in performance, lifts the whole fellowhood with him, and forms 
the public demand for many others of like temper with himself. Here 
also follows the maxim. " You must pay the best price if you want 
the best article." So salaries rise with the demand. Thus only ought 
salaries to rise, not so much because flour and beef are dear, but be- 
cause we are better men and women for our business, with a more 
generous and extended culture. 

I proceed, only to glance at a few of the means within our own power. 

Teachers' institutes I place very high. Assemblies of youth for 
mutual instruction, to be guided and directed by persons of matured 
experience; of young men and women fresh from the doubts and diffi- 
culties and successes in the school room, can not but impart a vigor 
and life corresponding. The compression of a week, or at farthest, 
two, is one most conducive to variety and spirit. Add to this, the 
diversity of questions on the part of the pupils, the hints each throws 
out in government, the ignorance each quietly discovers in himself 
when he measures himsell by his neighbor; the variety in methods 
shown by the instructors or lectures, the numberless suggestions* that 
like precious seed are the parents of a thousand-told pro^reny, and are 
worth a whole library of works on the glory of common schools. From 
these institutes the mind starts afresh with a steady vigor, such as 
we picture the traveler on the burning day, as he leaves the cooling 
fountain. Let us. by such assemblies, speak often to one another, for 
depend upon it, the apostolic vigor of a lively calling lies <;reatly in 
this. A grand point of union lies in the teachers' institutes. Nothing 
ought to prevent a punctual and constant attendance. Let them have 
your generous and earnest support. 

Next in importance, but by a considerable interval, county and 
town associations are to be placed. In these the good to be obtained 
is principally in the habit of that part of culture we call readiness 
and freedom of speech. Self-command, or in other words, presence of 
mind, comes with it. It stops, too, a man's tendency to dogmatism. 
Prove this thing, is the constant silent demand, or cease asserting a 
dogma — a most excellent training for school masters, whose chief 



11 

failing, saith emphatic public opinion, is a leaning that way. If con- 
nectfd witli these associations — and I think every teacher ought to 
be — make up your mind that you will not always be a silent member. 
Silence is a great gift, but even silence may be carried to excess. A 
cheerful, encouraging tongue is no small n atter. i\bove all, let us 
not range ourselves among those who do not take any part themselves, 
and yet can not refrain from sneering at those who do. 

Evidently standing next to this is our state association. A highly 
proper and useful institution. But while I speak of it most respect- 
fully, I take liberty to say that it is to be looked at with allowance. 
An association like this is a very powerful trip hammer. It looms 
up into a very imposing appearance. A great centralized power; a 
convention of the estates of the schools as it were, when it speaks, it 
must, and ought to speak with authority. But its authority, its power 
to influence, must always be the exponent of the individuality of its 
members. For there is nothing elevating or imposing in it, save as 
each of us, by a proper self-hood, shall bring heie the offering of his 
life and work. The noblest pile rises to its great proportions by the 
seemly stones most laboriously wrought of which it is composed. Do 
not then wait so much, as if for some secret influence the association 
may give you, as to strive after some influence you may exert on it, 
for who knoweth, but that mayhap, in this way you may receive that 
very good you came to get. In a great association like this, each has 
his own proper work. 

Something on a point about which I have felt deeply for years. I 
meant to have said; but time presses, and I forbear with a simple 
allusion. I mean some general plaa of examinations for the state. 
But you will readily perceive that this hardly lies within the range 
of that division of the theme we have been discussing, the means of 
elevation within our power. Let it be dismissed, therefore, to some 
other season with the simple remark, that I know of nothing so likely 
to give us a position of mark so surely as such a plan. 

Books and reading demand, in a generous culture, a place second to 
none. The lips of the well-read teacher drop manna and fatness on 
the driest lesson. If the teacher can go beyond the lesson books, and 
above them, the influence he exerts on the pupils is immense. In 
the boys' eyes he swells into the mightiest proportions, for learning 
is a true power in the school room. By so much as living lips are 
more impressive than the same dead wisdom iu books, by so much is 
the teacher greater in the sight of the child, than the author whom he 
carries in his satchel. I do not now speak of an acquaintance with 
the books of the school room. That necessity has already been suffi- 
ciently enforced. But I mean that more general acquaintance with 
books which we associate with all true intellectual culture. Shall it 
be said that time is wanting, that what is at our disposal is broken 
and disconnected, that thoughtful study is well nigh impracticable, 
when compelled to lay an author down after a brief perusal? Have 
we ever tried to make use of the mere droppings of time; has our 
favorite book been near us, so that we could readily resume our 
reading; have we read with interest wheii we did read, or read in a 
compulsory way. with an indistinct idea that the mere systematic 
attempt would make us so? The way we read is everything. If our 



12 

interest flags; if we find that after we have read a page, our mind has 
been wandering, let us drop the book; for the measure of our interest 
will aUrays be the measure of our real improvement. I do not under- 
value systematic reading — far from it — but to those of us who have 
not reached that most desirable habit, a word of encouragement seems 
both proper and necessary. For the circle of our reward in this finds 
but a small arc of itself in the school room; for in ourselves, in our 
own growth, will be found the completeness ot the curve. From the 
artificial constraint of the school, we must unbend either in converse 
with others or with books. We can not indeed always choose our 
companions, but we may always choose a few good books. From 
communion with such society one can enter on the platform of any 
social caste, and feel that he also is a man. 

1 am warned by the amount I have drawn on your patience, that I 
must hasten to a close. Before doing so, there seem still a itw words 
necessary. They shall be said briefly. 

Tiie growth of a true character is slow. Look at the oak. the 
monarch of the forest. The wind sways it; the rain swathes it; the 
great sun gladdens it; it stretches out its arms, and gets nourishment 
trom the air; it strikes out its roots and draws support and sustenance 
from the great mother. Frosts and snow alike minister to it. Morn- 
ing, and high noon, and night; summer and winter; the change of 
seasons, impart to it both strength and beauty. So. by analogy, is it 
with man. We must draw discipline and culture from our failures 
and from our success; from the bright days and from the dreary; from 
books and from men; from the whole liviuir face of nature, and from 
the great lessons of art. Especially we must avoid the sad fate that 
Wordsworth allots to Peter Bell: 

" A primrose by tlie water's brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more." 

Above all, let us live the lives, not so much of school masters and 
mistresses, but of true men and women. It were always well for us 
in the great commerce of the world, to recollect that everything that 
becomes humanity ought to have an inte-est for us ; that we are linked 
by innumerable cords to every thing arou. d us, and that it is only by 
this expansion of the soul, that we call the whole world kin 

Thus shall we have a certain erectness of mind suited to .1 varie- 
ties of fortune; a certain dignity which will not bow in servility to 
the great; a self respect which in due time will lift us to our proper 
place; and a self-sustaining power, when once there, that will entitle 
us to that short but striking motto under the picture of the great 
Warren Hastings in the council chamber at Calcutta, *• Mens aiqua in 
arduis*' — a mind steady under difficulties. 

Courage! courage! my friends! Our hope is in ourselves. It is not 
for nothing that the trenches around the beleagured fortress of public 
opinion have been filled with the fallen bodies of those who have pre- 
ceded us. Victory will yet be seized over the bridge they have helped 
to make for us. And though the morn be long a breaking, and the 
night lag, yet, true it is for all and for us, 

" Ever the Truth comes uppermost 
And ever is .Iu.stice done." 



THE 

NEW YORK TEACHER, 

THE ORGAN OF 

The New York State Teachers' Association, The Association of 

Graduates of the New York State Normal School, The 

New Jersey State Teachers' Association, and 

The California State Teachers' Association. 

PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT ALBANY, N. Y., 

UNDER THE DIRECTION OE A BOARD OE EDITORS. 

Each number consists of Sixty-Four Large Octavo Pages, besides 
a form for advertisements — and the whole furnished for the astonish- 
ingly low price of 

ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 

Considering the amount and variety of matter, and the object for 
which it is designed, namely : the Diffusion of Education and the 
Elevation of the Teachers' Profession — it may be safely classed as the 

lilGIST, CfillPIST ii BEST IffilTliMl mil II TSE f 8111D. 

One Ihat should be placed in the hands of every teacher, parent, and 
friend of education in the land. 

The Fifth Volume opens October ], 1855, under the most favor- 
able auspices. Having already reached an issue of Seven Thousand 
copies per month, it is now proposed to commence the new volume 
with 

Ten Tlioiisaiicl Copies! 

Teachers and friends of education throughout the land! Do you 
wish to invest One Dollar in this enterprise? Do you wish to en- 
courage and be encouraged? Do you wish to benefit and be benefited? 
If so, strike hands with us, and put your shoulder to the wheel of 
progress. 

"iluitt'b lX)c Stanb, tDiuibcD U3e inill." 

The cash principle is strictly adhered to. The verb "subscribe" 
is believed to be not neuter oi- passive, but active. 

A iew advertisements admitted at the lowest rates known in the 
country. 

All communications, subscriptions, &c., addressed to 

TRUMAN H. liOVVEN, 
Publishing Agent, Albany, JV. Y. 



\lBRARY OF CONGRESS 

019 747 








